San Juan mayor answers Trump’s Twitter attack

White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said Thursday that 10,000 federal government relief workers were now in Puerto Rico, including 7,200 troops, and that 44 of the island’s 69 hospitals were now fully operational. “Enough is enough”, she said in comments aimed at President Trump, in a televised briefing.

As the crisis continues with many residents still seeking access to food, electricity, medicine and water, many celebrities, including Lin-Manuel Miranda, Jennifer Lopez and Pitbull, have also urged swift action to aid Puerto Rico.

“This is a “people are dying” story”, Yulin Cruz said angrily on Friday. Trump said there would have to be talks between Washington and indebted Puerto Rico about how to pay the expenses – a suggestion he did not make about Texas and Florida.

Maria, the most powerful storm to strike Puerto Rico in almost 90 years, has killed at least 16 people on the island, according to the official death toll.

Trump, who is expected to visit the island Tuesday with his wife Melania Trump, first wrote three tweets Saturday criticizing the “poor leadership” in Puerto Rico, saying local mayors “want everything to be done for them when it should be a community effort”.

Trump has pledged to spare no effort to help Puerto Rico recover from Maria’s ruinous aftermath, and tweeted that military personnel and first responders have done “an incredible job”, despite having “no electric, roads, phones etc”.

She said on CNN: “This is a people-are-dying story”. And that’s exactly what the commander in chief did early Saturday morning, hours after the mayor of the island’s capital city, San Juan demanded more help from the federal government.

Clinton’s tweet came just about 45 minutes after Donald Trump doubled down on his criticism of the San Juan Mayor.

Hurricane Maria left many of Puerto Rico’s 3.4 million United States citizens without shelter, water, power, and other basic necessities.

Donald Trump has lashed out at Puerto Rico politicians over their criticism of U.S. relief efforts on the island following Hurricane Maria.

“People can’t fathom what it is to have children drinking from creeks, to have people in nursing homes without oxygen”.

“The federal response has been a disaster”, said lawmaker Jose Enrique Melendez, a member of Gov. Ricardo Rossello’s New Progressive Party. Because Puerto Rico is a territory of the US, its citizens are American citizens, too – free to locate anywhere in the country they wish.